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Mind tricks and EMC

A huge thanks for the nice people over at The Skeptic Magazine for the Paranormality article and Skepticality podcast in this week’s eSkeptic (details here). Also Phil Plait posted this very kind review at Discover.

I am heading off to the Essential Magic Conference today – details here.

14 comments on “Mind tricks and EMC”

The “lift ring finger when middle finger bent under hand” thing works on my left hand—no clearance from the table—but it doesn’t work for my right hand, where I can manage about 3mm clearance. Plus a bit of pain at the first knuckle of the middle finger. Hmm… perhaps the pain’s telling me I’m doing something I shouldn’t try too often.

A better trick I learned years ago to do with anatomy is to ask someone to hold their arm outstretched and tell them that you are going to attempt to bend their hand in towards their elbow and they are to try their best to resist. You may have to put some force into it, but eventually you will manage to do it. Then you tell them to do the same to you. You hold your arm outstretched and they try the same thing, but no matter how hard they try, your arm remains straight. It’s a great trick – as long as you don’t pick someone who is much, much stronger than you, as I once found out. That was quite embarrassing…

re- the last illusion with the spiral. As someone fond of tropical waterfalls, you can easily produce a “waterfall illusion” stare right into the waterfall for about a minute, then move your eyes to the land on the side – it starts moving upwards.
Richard, I came to you site because I read Paranomality (kindle edition) and saw a link on a TAM comment. Paranomality is a really entertaining read and codifies a lot of principals involved in how we can deceive ourselves. Thanks for writing it.

I have another one that i try with my nephews and nieces. I get them to stand in a doorway and lift their arms until the backs of their hands are touching either side of the doorway. Then, for at least thirty seconds I instruct them to press as hard as they can against the sides with the backs of their hands. Once you’ve goaded them on making them giggle and watching their arms shake, tell them to quickly stand away from the doorway and relax their arms. Their arms will “magically” start to float upwards toward the ceiling. It’s just a little muscle trick, but the kids LOVE it!

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